Thesis (D. Miss.)--Reformed Theological Seminary, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-198).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Erskine Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-123).

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Reformed Theological Seminary, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-198).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Erskine Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-123).

Thesis (D. Min.)--McCormick Theological Seminary, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 1962. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 468-488).

No description available.

Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

The missionary enterprise of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS, American Southern Presbyterian Church) in Korea was initiated by the arrival of ‘seven pioneers’ in Korea in 1892. By a comity agreement between the three Presbyterian missions, the southwestern region of Korea, known as Honam or Jeolla province, was assigned to the American Southern Presbyterian Mission. Until 1940, when they were forced to end their mission work in Korea and to leave the country by the Japanese colonial administration, the American Southern Presbyterian missionaries contributed to the formation of indigenous Protestant Christianity in Honam by planting churches, and building hospitals and schools. They also encouraged the Korean converts to establish their own churches following the Nevius method which stressed the founding of threeself independent churches. In this thesis, I attempt to analyze the process of the formation of indigenous Protestantism in Honam according to the three themes of traditions, encounters, and transformations. Presbyterians in the South shared with other leading Southern Protestants such as Baptists and Methodists both the warm evangelistic impetus of evangelicalism and an appeal to the Bible to justify racism. In particular, ecumenical missionary movements originating from a series of evangelical revivals helped the Southern Presbyterian workers in foreign lands overcome their inherited identity as the adherents of a geographically, culturally, and theologically sectional organisation to become the advocates of a more pan-evangelical obligation. Southern Presbyterian Korea missionaries already shared many common elements of evangelical theology and middle-class values with other Protestant missionaries even before the initiation of their mission work in 1892. From 1892 onwards, in response to the example of their Northern Presbyterian counterparts in the Korea mission field in initiating a more amicable relationship with their Southern colleagues, their isolated Southern identity gradually began to dissolve. The dominance of the pietistic stream of evangelical Christianity in Honam resulted from the congruence between Southern Presbyterians’ missionary Christianity and the traditional worldview of Honam people. In addition, a series of events, such as the revivals in the 1910s, the March First Movement in 1919, the complete revision of the constitution of the Korean Presbyterian Church in 1922, and the devolution of church and school management administration were the primary landmarks in the successful founding of indigenous Honam Christianity. If mission history is in part about what happens to one Christian tradition when it crosses geographical and cultural frontiers, my primary contribution in this thesis is to show in what ways the evolving Southern Presbyterian tradition at home was further changed and transformed, and then indigenised, in the Honam context. The thesis concludes that the progressive weakening of Southern Presbyterian sectional identity, first in the United States and then in Korea, significantly facilitated the indigenisation of Christianity in Honam. Crucial in this process was the democratising impact of revivals and the implications of wider ecumenical relationships with representatives of other denominations and regions. Honam Presbyterianism today is not a replica of the American Presbyterian tradition in its traditional Southern form. However, it does display many of the same features as the broad pan-evangelicalism to which the Southern Presbyterian mission increasingly adhered.

Background to the Research. In his enthronement sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942 William Temple famously declared the ecumenical movement to be ‘the great new fact of our era’. For much of the twentieth century it was the major metanarrative of Church renewal. By the end of the century however the enthusiasm had largely dissipated, the organizations which represented it were in decline, and the hoped for organic unity looked further away than ever. Surprisingly little has been written on the attempt to achieve organic unity in England, what it hoped to achieve and why, at least in terms of its expectations, it failed. I propose to come at this major topic by focusing on the creation of the United Reformed Church, which was formed in 1972 by a union of the majority of congregations of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church in England and saw its formation as a catalyst for the ecumenical renewal of the British churches. Methodology. This thesis, which is mainly resourced by documentary evidence and interviews, comes into the category of qualitative research but also uses statistics where they are relevant, for example when dealing with Church decline. Since I am a United Reformed Church minister, and have worked ecumenically, my role here draws upon the perspective of an observing participant. Conclusions. The research revealed that the hopes of the United Reformed Church to be a catalyst for church renewal were illusory and that the effects of its ecumenical priority were partially negative in the Church’s life. With the failure of its ecumenical hope the Church had little idea of its purpose and found great difficulty establishing an identity. It suffered from severe membership loss and the hoped for missionary advantage promised by its ecumenical strategy did not materialize. The thesis will analyse the reasons for failure, while noting that what failed was not ecumenism as such but a particular model of ecumenism.